If a local high school kid is drinking tonight, there’s a good chance the parents know where the alcohol came from:

Themselves.

This isn’t a matter of kids filching booze from the family liquor cabinet. Teens say their parents are supplying them with booze.

What’s that? You yawn at such info? After all, you can always find a few bad parents, right?

Actually, around Peoria, you can find a lot of them — more than most places. Hereabouts, parents supply their kids on a regular basis more than the state average. In fact, nearly half the time when high school seniors drink in Woodford and Tazewell counties, their parents provide the alcohol.

Am I naive here? Does that rate alarm anyone else? Do any parents wonder if their kids are getting loaded at their friends’ houses — as other parents look on approvingly?

I discovered this information when an educator invited me (as a reporter) to attend a meeting on teen substance abuse. I figured that mostly meant drug use, and indeed we’ve got a load of info on that. But I was most surprised by alcohol statistics.

Other parents get shocked by the same info — if they’re willing to take a look. But it’s hard to get them interested, says Hillary Aggertt, director of health education and supportive services for the Woodford County Health Department.

“Parents are the hardest ones to get involved,” she says. “We’re trying to get rid of the denial: ‘I know everything about alcohol and it’s no big deal.’”

Aggertt helps run seminars by Citizens Against Substance Abuse, a Woodford County coalition of educators, clergy, business, parents, police and others. At a recent awareness breakfast, this is what I heard:

Statewide, among 12th-graders who have drunk alcohol in the past year, 33 percent “usually” got the booze (beer, wine, or spirits) from their parents — with their parents’ permission. In Tazewell County, the rate was 44 percent, while in Woodford County the rate was 45 percent.

Why is it higher there? Good question. Aggertt and her colleagues, in Woodford and other counties, are trying to figure that out. They hope many of the answers will come from a new Illinois Youth Survey being taken by students right now about alcohol, tobacco, drugs, violence, family life and other important issues.

The anonymous survey, administered by the University of Illinois, has been around for two decades. But only in the past few years has the information been available online to anyone, Aggertt says.

Page 2 of 2 - During the last survey, in 2012, Peoria County had woeful participation, about 30 percent of schools. Thus, Peoria County’s survey results are dubious, and include nothing from 12th-graders. The Peoria County Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition has vowed to avoid such embarrassment with the next round of results, due out in August.

Meanwhile, Aggertt continues to mull why parents in Woodford County (which had 100-percent survey participation from its schools) are more cavalier about giving hooch to their kids, compared to the state average.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Aggertt says. “Is it teens drinking with their parents? Is it family gatherings? Is it three people drinking or 50 people?”

You might think you know your kids and their friends. But do you know their parents? How well?

That’s why Aggertt urges parents to go to the survey site and look up results by county (http://iys.cprd.illinois.edu/home/results/county). There’s a lot of intriguing material in there. Some of it’s promising: for example, inhalants and prescription drugs don’t seem to be a big deal, locally or statewide.

But there’s also some alarming info. Over the past year, 25 percent of Tazewell County 12th-graders had been in a car driven by someone who had been drinking alcohol or using drugs. In Woodford County, the figure went up to 33 percent.

Meanwhile, the same age group was asked if they’d “seriously considered attempting suicide” in the past year. In Woodford, 10 percent said yes; in Tazewell, the figure was 13 percent.

Did you know all that? I didn’t. There’s a lot in those reports worth knowing.

“This is our youth,” Aggertt says. “This is our future.”

PHIL LUCIANO is a Journal Star columnist. He can be reached at pluciano@pjstar.com, facebook.com/philluciano, 686-3155 or (800) 225- 5757, Ext. 3155. Follow him on Twitter @LucianoPhil.